Blue Card Rundown January, 2026

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The episode feature Josh Blum and John Vance

We share what’s new and what’s next for Blue Card in 2026, from revamped instructor training and standards alignment to expanding after-action reviews and regional grant models. The focus stays on competence, clean communication, and decisions that match deployment and risk.

• regional training benefits and shared language
• radio tickets and communications discipline
• benton harbor AFG regional project and SDM workshops
• revamped train the trainer with stronger why
• alignment with NFPA 1550 and 1700 terminology
• competence for ICs and instructors as certification standard
• instructor webinar details and live Q&A
• simulation previews tailored to staffing and deployment
• after action reporting access beyond instructors
• objective AARs guiding improvement and reinforcing wins
• events calendar, Phoenix CTC seats, and road workshops
• safety CEs, SOG updates, and tutorial videos
• grants and funding paths for command training
• conference meetups and direct support
• weekly Buck Slip drills and free resources
• EMS-to-hazmat decision making with CO case work

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Recorded on January 21, 2026

Chapters

• 0:00 New Year Blue Card Rundown
• 1:58 Regional Training Wins In Minnesota
• 4:00 Tickets, Radios, And Comms Discipline
• 6:02 Benton Harbor Grant And Regional Model
• 9:34 Strategic Decision-Making Workshop Explained
• 12:46 Revamped Train-The-Trainer: The Why
• 17:19 Standards Alignment And Curriculum Refinements
• 20:46 Competence For ICs And Instructors
• 24:53 Instructor Webinar Details And Purpose
• 26:39 Simulation Previews Tailored To Deployment
• 29:56 IAP Plus Three And Company Officers
• 31:29 Opening AAR Access Beyond Instructors
• 35:42 Objective AARs And Continuous Improvement
• 41:04 Events Calendar And Course Availability
• 44:41 Phoenix CTC Experience And Cohorts
• 46:47 Workshops On The Road And SDM Momentum
• 50:54 Safety, Fire Dynamics, And CE Updates

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:45

Welcome to the B Shifter Podcast. You've got John Vance and Josh Bloom today, and this is the B Shifter Blue Card rundown for January twenty twenty-six. Good day, Josh. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01: 1:01

I'm doing great. Yeah. Been busy. Glad to get back at it after the holidays. Been a busy week this week, even with even with having a holiday this week. It was, you know, busy on the phones, email, on the road with a class, getting other classes scheduled.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18

So yeah, it's uh all good. Yeah, same here. We had a uh great week last week in Burnsville, Minnesota. The Burnsville, Minnesota Fire Department hosted a blue card train the trainer. I think we had eight or nine departments in there. There's a huge representation everywhere from St. Paul, of course, Burnsville, Minnetonka, Maple Grove. I know I'm forgetting some in there, but we we had we had uh area departments and you know, I this is where I live, and and it's really a good representation on how blue card should work within a region because now you can, you know, you're gonna skip jurisdictions once in a while. There, there's holdouts and areas and pockets that in the metro area that that do not do blue card, but now more departments are. And it's really good to get folks in the room. And when you realize, hey, we're all speaking the same language, and if we end up on a four or five alarm fire together, we're gonna be able to operate very well together. And and so not only does it bring that operational thing, you know, together, but also they're you know starting to share resources. I mean, this this week or last week, we were talking about command vans and expanded command teams, and how are we gonna operate on that? So these blue card train the trainers when we're in areas that I would call very you know more advanced, like like this, and and I'm not saying that to pat ourselves on the back, it's been a lot of hard work that people have been doing around here since 2011 to to make blue card happen. It it's it's very, very evident. And and things that we're ahead on, like, and we're gonna talk about this in a moment, especially when it comes to what what our webinar is gonna be, but things like using tickets to get on the radio, you know, generally all the departments around here are. I I would say at least you know, 70% are. And then when you simulate and you forget it, or departments aren't, and and we saw that with the big box workshop that we did with Shane Ray here last month, it's it's very apparent. It's like, what you're leaving a gap there, and it kind of throws an IC off a little bit because you're used to either triaging the communication or the sender of the communication is used to formatting it using that that ticket to get on the radio. So that was a a really good one. Uh, our our guys are on the shores of Lake Michigan this week, man. They're in Benton Harbor. I I know uh you know, I love how you send these guys out, Josh, from Arizona and Nevada to one of the coldest places in the continental United States. But uh, that's a whole brand new area that that's coming up with Blue Card. They've done a great job there. The Benton Harbor Department of Public Safety got a big grant. What what kind of work are they doing there? And is is that kind of a model that that we can help people use if they're gonna bring Blue Card into an area?

SPEAKER_01: 3:56

Yeah, so that's uh that's a regional project that they got an AFG grant for. Several agencies in the county are part of that. So we're actually gonna be there, I think, seven times. We're doing a train the trainer, and then we're delivering. I think every workshop we have, we're delivering that, and then we're also doing, we're actually delivering a strategic decision-making workshop two different times to get more people exposed to that, which is which is just that that other layer of you know, far too often we hear blue car is just a communications program. And it's like, well, in the strategic decision making two-day workshop, it it's it's another layer of in-depth dive of what blue card is, but you know, it it is decision-making, right? And the communications process part of it is just you know, where we where we're acting out or giving, you know, communications database staying on the same page, but everybody there still has to make decisions, specifically IC1 and IC2, and then you know, obviously division bosses. So that that's like the next step once you have instructors and you're getting people, you know, certified, is it just takes it to a whole new level of getting everybody thinking and everybody on the same page because we want our firefighters on the fire ground, you know, able to make decisions. And you know, sometimes when experience lacks, you know, training can replace a lot of that. And I think the the strategic decision making workshop, you know, helps with that. So yeah, we're we're we're pretty sure it is. We're gonna be in Benton Harbor like seven times this year, starting this week, and then this weekend they're delivering the first strategic decision-making workshop. So five-day trainer and then a strategic decision-making workshop. So that'll be really good. Yeah, Chris and Eric are struggling a little bit, I think, up there. They're from the desert. I think the day before Chris flew from I think San Diego and it was like 78 degrees to South Bend. And I sent I think he said it was a 100-degree temperature difference when he when he landed. But uh welcome from the Midwest, boys. I'm just brought in their horizons, right? Yeah, yeah. I don't like to be in Phoenix when it's 117 either.

SPEAKER_00: 6:07

Yeah, I'll take that, man. We're our high temperature on uh Thursday this week is gonna be negative 11. Our low is gonna be minus 25. I know you're feeling the deep freeze too, so I would take any kind of warmth. So, what one of the things these so the train the trainer this week and and last week, there's a a new curriculum. I'm not I'm it's not completely new. I probably should say it's like revamped. You always say we're in command function number seven as a group. Blue card is, we're always reviewing and revising and making things better. And and we looked at our train the trainer curriculum, and and you know, everybody drifts, fire departments drift. We we drift towards things and address certain needs at the time. I think we went through a period of time as a training organization where we were training brand new fire departments in Blue Card and how to teach it at the same time. So maybe we we went a little more basic, and and I think we've gone a little more advanced now with this new way of delivering. So talk a little bit about what we are doing today with that new train the trainer package and what people can expect in 2026 versus last year.

SPEAKER_01: 7:18

Yeah, so the big thing with the train and trainer is we want instructors to leave there with the all the tools and support to be able to deliver the program at their own organization and be confident about it, comfortable and confident about it. And, you know, I think we like all training groups, you know, sometimes we were just looking at the outcome, I think, and not, you know, the entire process. So the one big thing we did is we were teaching people how, but we weren't given near enough why. And though, you know, on Thursday we do the May Day Management, you know, component of a train the trainer, and people really start to connect to it. I think on Thursday, a lot of light bulbs go on on Thursday, even for the ones that where the light bulb was very dim, and the naysayers on Thursday, it's like, okay, now I see where this is. So, you know, the whole team of everybody who's a blue card instructor, you know, has engaged and and given feedback and and what we can do better and how we can deliver it, the train the trainer part better to give people all the tools that they need to be successful. So I know John last week it sounded like you guys, you know, all the feedback you guys had was, you know, it was really good. The you know, the front end of spending two and a half hours on this is why blue card is what it is, and this is why we do what we do. And here's the instances that here's some instances where blue card is connected back to that blue card can prevent some of these things from happening if you if you just follow the process and best practices. So I think that's really good because that's going to give people some ammunition when they're standing in front of their folks of why are we doing this? You know, far too often we hear, well, ICS is ICS, and it's like, eh, no, no, it's not. I mean, we uh I just heard this week some folks taking a command class at the NFA, and they spent one whole day bashing blue card at the NFA, and then it's funny the next day they were talking about the eight functions of command, and it's like, well, which way is it? And I say this all the time on on our podcast and not just podcast, but everywhere. It's people don't even know what it is, so they they're afraid of it. So when you're afraid of it, they start talking about it, and it's like, well, just why don't you just find out what it is? And blue card aligns with all of the best practices for incident command, and you know, there is nothing else out there that that aligns and meets you know best practice and standards. And you know, I think there's some proof in the pudding with that when you hear all of the folks from all of those four-letter organizations that that talk about blue card and and and not just blue card, but fire command, you know, the first edition of fire command, or what Bruno wrote in his you know original notes before Fire Command, the initial version of Fire Command was even ever pushed out. So we're excited about the this this updated version of the instructor program, and with that comes quite a few revisions, nothing earth-shattering, nothing with the main foundation of of what Blue Card is, you know, the eight functions of command and and evaluation of critical fire ground factors using strategic decision-making model and pushing it through the risk management model. But we we've refined it so that the end user has a better product to deliver, and we refined it because some standards update stuff. So an FPA 1550 update and FPA 1700, we've just made sure that some of our terminology aligns. An example, basements. We we refined the basement part. We were, I think we kept on getting further and further in the weeds on identification, what do we call certain basements, and we've we've we cleaned that up as an example of it's it's just the three basement types that are identified in an FPA 1700. It's either, you know, no basement, access somewhat accessible, or or fully accessible, right? So I mean that that's basically the and and before we had walk out, look out, walk up, and it's like, well, what does all that really mean? So we stay in a state of fixing ourselves, just like fire departments should stay in the state of constantly fixing themselves. And we and we also are look at well, this is working really good, so we're gonna keep that, but we're gonna refine this part. So looking forward to delivering that this year.

SPEAKER_00: 11:38

One of the the discussions that come up with with this re-refined curriculum was competence, and and you know, that's one slide in in that intro now. But we spent a lot of time in the class here in Minnesota, and I know I got texts from somebody who's in the class in Benton Harbor talking about competence, not only competence as an IC, but then I having competence as an instructor and how important that is. And and this is a certification program, and and people tend to forget that sometimes. We are certifying people as incident commanders. So sometimes we have to say, you're you know, not everyone can be an incident commander. We we need to work on this more. And then if you're gonna stand up in front of the class and deliver a program, whether it's blue card or ropes and knots, you better be good at it. And you better have some competence with it. And these are very interesting discussions that we're having with people. I know it's it's a little more esoteric, but I I think it opens the doors. And I saw tons of light bulbs coming on here in Minnesota when we started talking about not only competence as the IC, but also being a good command instructor and somebody who can model what you're supposed to do in the field and then deliver that inside the classroom. So that's stuff that we're going to be talking about during our webinar. We have a webinar coming up on Wednesday, January 28th for our instructors. So if you're a blue card instructor, sign up for that. There's a link in the show notes so you can sign up for that right now if you haven't gotten our emails. Uh, we have about 250 people signed up for it so far. But we have a lot of instructors. So if you're listening to this and you're not a blue card instructor, go to your instructors within your department, make sure that they're signed up. Uh, when we do our webinars, they are live so that we can have interaction with you. We'd like to field questions and get comments. But if you're not able to make it live, we send you a link to video on demand immediately after the webinar is done so you can watch it at your convenience later on. So if you've got a meeting or it's your day off, you can just watch it later on. But we we have a lot of good information coming up for our instructors in that webinar, and what we want folks to attend.

SPEAKER_01: 13:54

Yeah, so the just uh one other piece of of a revision we've made and in the in the delivery, and we'll hit this on the 28th, but just to just to kind of put it out there to everybody who hears this is the our simulation previews. We we've made another revision to those, and those those previews were are set up so that it's how it's how blue card can be modified for your organization. So, example, we all we always hear, well, we're not the Phoenix Fire Department, we don't have that many people, we can't deploy like that. We we have two people on a fire truck, so we have to put two engines together, or we have three people on a fire truck, so we put two engines together to create an attack team. So, you know, how do we do that with blue card? Because that doesn't align. And it actually the blue card system aligns 100% with that because it comes down to you have to make decisions based off of critical factors and all the factors, and and we are always using the eight functions of command. So command function one is deployment, and that's what we have to look at first. We can't do work that we don't have the people to do, so we have to identify what is the priority and what work can we do with the people that we have available. So the previews have been refined again to align with that, so your organization can decide and make it all line up with your deployment model, not you train one way and then you do something else. So that's another another piece that has been refined.

SPEAKER_00: 15:24

The light bulbs that go off too when we start talking about things like the IAP plus three for the first arriving company officer. Not that we expect them to eit even do all of those things that need to happen, but that we want them thinking about it. We want them identifying, okay, if I'm gonna put water on the fire right now, what else needs to happen behind me in order not only to support my attack position, but also to get the other priorities in the structure done, whether that's checking for extension, getting all clears on different levels, supporting ventilation and other support work. Folks start to think about that, and it suddenly empowers the company officers too. And I think that's another part of just what what we continue to talk about, especially in those previews. So we want you to get signed up for that. It is Wednesday, January 28th, webinar, and I think it's one o'clock uh Eastern time. So look at the show notes, click on it, get signed up, and uh we'll we'll deliver all that information. And what one of the other things that we're we're talking about, and it this is new at the beginning of the year, is the availability of the after-action review for all blue card users. It was an added value for all of our instructors last year. We've opened that up. So tell us about why we opened it up and and how's it available to departments with beyond instructors?

SPEAKER_01: 16:49

Yeah, so initially the after-action reporting system got pushed out, like you said, John, and it was available to anybody who was an instructor is of just added value. So it just popped up on your dashboard if you're an instructor, and you could use the after-action reporting system. So pretty early on, and the rollout of that, we were getting feedback. Well, we have other people who we want to do after action reports that aren't instructors. And so we just like everything, well, all the feedback we get, we take into consideration of what do we do, how do we do it, and then put it, you know, in that processing line, if you will, of when when can we make a change and and meet the needs of the customer. So we're we're finalizing it now. It's actually in test. So the AAR is rolled out, and we've we got plenty of people who are entering and using the after-action reporting system very regularly. If they're if they're dispatched to a structure fire, even if it's not a fire, they still do an after action report on it because they identify the the the how well they're doing on the front end still with initial radio report, follow-up report, maybe assigning a couple companies. So what what this expansion is is if your organization does blue card, you have an instructor, at least one, and your organization has full access to our material, CE and so on. So they're they're paying the student subscription price, then it's a subscription for additional students or additional users to get access to the after action reporting system. And we we built that out to make it pretty easy for organizations to add additional folks in their system to use the after action reporting system. And you know, part of that is the we have nine battalion chiefs, or we have 12 battalion chiefs, or we have 20, whatever the number is, and you know, we but we only have four instructors, and our four instructors can't possibly enter and do all the after action reviews. So, you know, we we heard that, and now we've developed this subscription-based program so that anybody in your organization that is blue card certified can have access to the after-action reporting system. So there'll be more pushed out on that here in the next week once it's like live on our dashboard. We have plenty of organizations, like I said, that are using it regularly. And then we have plenty of organizations that have an event. I've been working for the last month with an organization that had a May Day, that had a good outcome. They hadn't done any after action reporting. They really had self-proclaimed that they were, you know, they were really nailing it, they were really nailing it. They were doing fantastic on the fire ground. And they were doing pretty good on the fire ground. And there's plenty of things that we can always identify though that we can do better. So the the this first after action that this organization does, they identified all kinds of things besides how the Mayday went. And you know, the Mayday was a person not injured, hurt at all, disoriented for a very short period of time, solved very quickly. And the Mayday part actually was managed and went pretty well. I mean, it was it was solved like a lot of Maydays are in like I think under 30 seconds. But what they identified is we're we we as an organization are going to talk about this because we don't want this to ever happen again. And really, why did it happen? And then when they started into it and they did evaluation of initial radio report, follow-up report, assigning companies, command transfer, putting a division into place, priority traffic, all these other pieces that it was like wow, like we're there, there's there's a lot of place, there's a lot of room here for us to. improve and they identified a lot of places that they do really well. So when we talk about after action, a big part of it is reinforcing good behavior and working on what we can do better. And I I'm not a big fan of anybody saying what we did wrong. I I like the what can we do better? And that's why it's so important that we evaluate everything that we do. We can't measure it off of, okay, yes, great job. We put the fire out and we pulled out we pulled out a victim and they survived. Okay, great. That that that's fantastic. That's what we're here for. That's a great job. But when we look at the path of how we got there and we identify, okay, that was really good, but what are some things here that we can still do better? That's how we continue to improve on the fire ground every single day is looking at ourselves and saying what we can do better. And that's why I say all the time as as a company that delivers training, we are always looking at how we can do better and how we can fix ourselves. And just like the fire department for us it's a process of you can't flip a switch and it just happens overnight. So we got we identify something we can do better, we put folks to work fixing it and we spend time commit to it and then on the other end we we see we see that improvement. So we're we're we're very excited about the after action reporting stuff. We got I'm not even sure how many are in there now but I think a thousand or so after action reports. I think we got like 17 of them in there now with victims being removed they gave priority traffic gave conditions actions and needs specifically reported we need the cyano kit and it's like if nothing if you just pull that out and share it with your entire organization from hey here's a priority traffic with a victim found where they nailed every single component and you share that with everybody and say this is what we this is what we want it to sound like and it sounds like that because we train the people to make decisions. So you know when we find a victim it's not just about okay we found the victim it's we found the victim what's the best thing we can do shelter in place or remove them if we're going to remove them how do we remove them how do we keep them out of the hazard how do we not make it worse for them but also telling the division boss if they're in place or the strategic IC what are all my needs so I need a ladder to bring them out of a window or we're going to shelter in place or I'm bringing them out the front door and I need EMS on the alpha side with a cyano kit and those are all those are all good things that can be you know reinforced when you use the after action reporting system. And then on the other side of it that 10 or 20% of things that we can look at and say we're not going to do this again. We can do this better and this is what it looks like moving forward. So so that just brings me to a thing that Eric Phillips talks about all the time and he's the he's the he's our master on the after action reporting you know piece we can't measure success on okay well it it it just worked we have to measure success on did we all did we follow all of the process and did did we did we check all of the boxes that we really needed to check and I'm not saying a piece of paper check box I'm saying that we followed best practice and did everything that we really needed to do. And we do it on EMS organization makes I don't know 10 the they make 10 000 EMS runs and a thousand fire runs and they do 10 000 QA reports on EMS runs and we can't do an after action report on a hundred fire runs that we can all learn from and do better. I mean if we're if we're really committed to providing service to Mr. Smith then we should be looking to do the best we can possibly do with it without having to have an authority having jurisdiction like on the MS side medical direction telling us what we're going to do. Can't we self-identify and say hey we can do better and let's use this system to help us identify where we can do better and to reinforce the things that we do well.

SPEAKER_00: 24:42

So everyone who uses it once you start using it they want to keep using it once you figure out how it works and it's really not that difficult. There there's a lot of pieces and parts to it and you can make it as complicated or as easy as you want. But once you start using it it it becomes very very easy to use and the input that I'm getting from everybody universally is it is an objective way to make your scenes better. Because you know in the old days with post incident action reviews or however we used to do it sometimes you know it was open to interpretation or or whoever was facilitating the after action review it was really up to them you know their opinion sometimes this is just all fact based and and it's based on on using the blue card criteria to to evaluate how you did and I think that's really one of the very very useful things about it. So we'll talk about that on on Thursday but but if you're if you're Wednesday if you're not with us there though look for it because it's it's going to be available to your department to everybody for for an additional but it's included with all the instructors right now. But we we know there's some departments where just better if if maybe you know a non-instructor was the one entering that information and overseeing the after action review program. Man our calendar is busy I I forgot what you said like 47 different events but uh we we have a lot of things coming up workshops train the trainers what what are we doing next and uh what's available because I know a lot of those classes are full right now but we do we do have availability in some of the workshops and some of the train the trainer classes yeah so right now hey let's break it for a second so I can take care of him yeah no problem little boy needs to go to the bathroom we are back go ahead yeah so we got I think 42 or 43 events on our schedule currently for 2026 most of it January through June so we got quite a bit of availability July through December if you really needed to do something January through June or you wanted to do something reach out to me and we can look at what we might have available but we're we're pretty stacked up.

SPEAKER_01: 27:07

So we got a couple of openings for a big box workshop in Ocala Florida March 12th and 13th and then the Bowling Green Mayday workshop March 23rd and 24th other than that we have seats in the Phoenix train the trainers but if you go to our events you can see the open seats and in any of those other classes that are regional but for the most part they are all they're all filled up with maybe one or two seats available except Phoenix there's their seats open that if you needed to get wanted to get somebody into a train the trainer class.

SPEAKER_00: 27:49

And let me say something about the Alan v. Bernicini Command Training Center in Phoenix too just just what that experience is like for people this is really good for departments that either if you're starting brand new you need to you know you're on your second third fourth generation of instructor you need to get somebody up and going but those classes really become cohorts that we have out there. There's a real strong connection between the classes and the wonderful thing about it is you're bringing people from every corner of the United States together and we're operating as one throughout the week and you just get the the mojo of being at the at the place where command was built so the AVB CTC is is an awesome learning experience for everybody. The hotel's right down the street of course the weather is usually pretty good out there too so that that's part of it. So we we have a number of classes March April May and June all posted right now at the AVB CTC. So get signed up for those and that's really one of the few places with availability and then what what else are we doing on the road what else we have going on out there?

SPEAKER_01: 28:51

Yeah so we got quite a few other you know workshops going on and if you're interested in any of our workshops we do the Mayday workshop expanded command workshop big box workshop the strategic decision making model workshop which is since we launched that that that that that's gone to a whole new place. So we're I think we're delivering three or four SDM classes at the Worcester Fire Department and then we're doing a Mayday class up there and they're taking all of those seats so Chief Dyer and Chief Fleischer and all of the folks there at Worcester are are taking it to the you know next level there at their organization. So we we do have limited availability for that big box. I think we might be able to do one or two more in the in the third or fourth quarter that's always based on Shane Ray's you know availability and that could his availability changes at a moment's notice when you when you're at the top of that pyramid and engage with all the things that he's engaged with for with the National Fire Sprinkler Association and then all the work he does you know on with code work and and all of that and organizing all of the code work in all of the states and helping people you know to try to get sprinkler code updates. So that that's that's our challenge with the big box component but that class is that class typically always is uh it fills up in no time we I think uh the big box class we're doing here in Cincinnati is oversold and I've got like 25 people that want in it so I said well there's an option for you you can go to Ocala Florida we got some open seats there but that class is starting to get a little bit more momentum we only got I think maybe 20 seats left in that Ocala class. The safety class we we launched that like seven maybe or eight years ago size up in fire extinguishment tactics and it's really the it's a hands-on component but the the first day's classroom with thermoimaging and fire dynamics and what's the capability of your PPE and aligning all of that with really uh a deeper dive into some critical fire ground factors and then obviously burning the prop and getting people with their hands on cameras and and and doing some smaller scale you know fire dynamics you know parts and pieces we have five of those training trainers booked for 2026 right now with another another half a dozen of them that are we're just waiting on trying to figure out dates of of when we when we're gonna likely do something with that yeah so a lot going on with that we are pushing out a couple of new CEs here within the next month or two the the next silverback CE will be out when I say CE right now you know it it's it's counting towards continuing education and it'll just be in the continuing education component if you have full access to to Blue card you're paying for that annual subscription but when the Silverback Leeds program is complete it will be a standalone program just like Blue card is so it'll have it'll have all of those modules and then it'll have a three day or maybe four day in-person series that goes along with supporting all of that stuff that you learn in the foundational components of it in the online piece. So we're pushing that out we got a couple of CEs that we've refined and updated that'll be coming out working on finalizing the our our SOG update. So I'm thinking probably around the first of February somewhere around there will all of those SOGs that are in our free download center on the B shifter webpage will all be refined and we're we're just going through those making sure just like as a fire department should but we're just doing probably a lot of the work for you making sure that our SOGs still meet best practice and meet meet your needs so making sure that they align with 1550 and 1561 and 1700 and all of the other standards that are that are out there that that tie back to to incident management and incident command one thing that I'll just put push out there if you're an instructor in the download section we have a whole folder that's tutorial videos and I think because it's at the bottom maybe it gets overlooked I don't know but there's like a dozen or so tutorial videos in there that tell you how to create an event how to how to do tracking of your organization how to run reports for your organization tutorials on filling out an IC worksheet tutorials on division ops a recent tutorial that we just released this week that'll also be on the student dashboard of so basically so now you're certified now what like how do you maintain your certification what are the requirements what's the timeline what does all those parts and pieces that are on your dashboard really mean so the the tutorial part is really going to take the place of that old 200 page document that you had to you know read through or you could search it to find a specific thing on I'm stuck at this block on filling out in records management or whatever. So we we we're replacing those with tutorial videos and with a with a longer term vision of and I'm not putting a date on this but with a longer term vision of those of you who are using the after action report know that there's a tutorial video on every single page how do you fill it out what are you what's this what do you really do on that page well that we're going to be building that out with the records management system as well. So you know page one of creating an event you can watch a 60 second tutorial on here's all the parts and pieces and what goes in each one of those blocks and then we'll likely put the little question marks you know on there so you can just hover over the question mark just like we have in the after action reporting system of a little it's a little quicker than watching a tutorial video maybe of what what am I supposed to put in this you know field or this block or why won't let me move forward or or whatever that is.

SPEAKER_00: 34:54

So a lot of stuff going on in the field for delivery and a lot of stuff going on on the back end every day every day at the that the at the offices work while while others are talking we are working yeah yeah somebody in the last class we just did and and it's coming up now you know usually one or two people in class because there's a lot of social media firefighters out there and I said you know we're not a social media company we are a training company we we train incident commanders so that's what we spend our energy doing not out fighting on the internet because this is where the rubber meets the road and these classes and all of this content that we have including the CEs that's where that's the real work that's where the rubber meets the road and you know I'm not going to be able to tell you in 250 characters how to how to run your fire department but but we have a pretty good idea because of the staff that we have and the success that our staff's had starting with Alan Brunicini who started it all for us uh and and us carrying on that vision that's what we do so if you want to be connected to it you know there is plenty of content out there for you to continue on that training and you know we'll talk to folks about our CEs and then understand well they haven't even seen the CE or their instructor didn't let them know the CE's out there or push it to their staff. So that there's a lot of thousands of hours of training that we have available to you if you're a blue card department you just got to use it connect to it.

SPEAKER_01: 36:23

Yeah so the so the other thing I'll just mention is once a week I get a message hey I'm looking for the NIST building flaps video that they did with the Phoenix Fire Department and it's like okay well we the you're an instructor it's in the instructor download center. So in the instructor download center under videos there's probably two dozen videos in there some of them are very long all the command function videos Southwest supermarkets videos the NIST videos they did at multiple different buildings the interviews with the doctors from I don't know 30 years ago I think now of you know survivability in conditions with carbon monoxide and nothing that they're pushing out now contradicts any of that stuff that those doctors uh were saying 30 years ago when when NIST was doing work in at the Phoenix Fire Department and burning down you know buildings for for research. So when we talk about work just this week I started back diving into it and John you'll probably laugh but now now we pass stuff around on computer or SharePoint and we can all work on it at the same time and take notes but I think just probably I don't know eight or nine years ago we used to get it it used to come like this. Yeah and it was the chief's business card with like a little intro and then this just happens to be the cool command document. So this is what he sent and said you know hey what do you guys think what should we do with this and unfortunately he passed before anything happened with it and got launched but that's what Terry that's one of the things Terry and Nick are working on now because the cool command stuff aligns with really the senior advisor role so as a senior advisor how do you how do you coach the incident commanders through and how do you help them stay calm cool collected manage the event so it's just funny like it it's changed because of technology but how we do work and how we share work and this isn't one person sitting there going crazy on the keyboard it's it's a collective of all of us and then you know we love to connect with our with the SMEs right like uh last week when you had or two weeks ago when you had on Dan and Chief Healy and Murray Laughlin and that group like does does this all align? Does it all make sense? Does this align with a set that those are the principles or a few of the folks that worked on the 1700 stuff so is what we're doing aligning with the 1700 stuff and when when you get folks folks with that level of experience that have delivered delivered delivered and developed training programs for 40 years and and that's what people look to and and they're they're they're verifying yeah this this all aligns that's good and and we're doing it for the end user the customer of Mrs Smith right so the more we can help the organization the more we can deliver on on the end of of customer service to help the customer so that's what we're here to do.

SPEAKER_00: 39:24

I I say we're we're not command theory these aren't theories the this is actual tried and true performance of command and you know starting with what the chief was doing in Phoenix and then it's just expanded out there to you know all these other fire departments and over 65000 incident commanders and growing all the time that have been trained with our system. Folks are you know we're kind of in grant season right now what kind of grant support can we offer i i know there's a lot of folks have gotten AFG grants and other grants to help support their command training particularly when it comes to blue card uh what what are you seeing out there right now and what are you hearing about grants and what kind of support can we give people yeah so I'm I'm guessing any day I mean I don't I'm not I don't pay super attention to it like every single day and and bother the folks that may be in the know of when they're gonna roll out application period whatever but we know it's coming sometime soon all the all those folks out there that do grant writing keep on pushing out hey get ready you know be thinking about your grant all of that so if you're looking to do or submit for an AFG grant either local or they love the regional work for Blue Card reach out to us and we can help you with why does blue card meet

SPEAKER_01: 40:36

meet the requirements and why do you score well? Why does blue card or incident command training score well? And you know, there's some things with that. It's the it's the certification and maintaining certification. It's the fact that it aligns with all of the best practice parts and pieces. When you look at 1561 and it has eight functions of command and critical factors in it, well it's like that that's that's right from the first edition of Fire Command, really, right? It's it's it all it all aligns with command best practice for type four and five events. And then always looking for if you if you look you can definitely find you know grant money and other funds out there. So in Ohio the public utilities conservate PUCO in Ohio does does quite a bit of grant work and organizations are typically funded pretty well from them for blue card training. Blue card has that high hazmat ic certification so that helps if you're if you're doing some kind of a PUCO grant. If you're looking for something for that from in Ohio you know reach out and I can help you. And then all kinds of of private money out there between you know like firehouse subs grants and right along that lines of firehouse subs there's probably you know two dozen other groups that are similar to that that put out some kind of funding for fire training. And you know a challenge sometimes is is getting it off the ground and if you if you get some little bolus of money on the front end to help you get it off the ground then sometimes it makes it easier to to you know be able to sustain the program.

SPEAKER_00: 42:12

So contact ush has all that information josh at b shifter.com if you need help with a narrative or or some direction and and we can give you some examples of some successes that have happened out there. I know we're booking our travel right now we've got a a number of uh conferences we'll be at this year and we want to invite people to connect with us at the conference it's a lot better to get together face to face especially if either your agency's struggling with something and you or you're already doing blue card or you're looking at blue card and you have those lingering questions out there. What which conferences are we going to and and what can we expect?

SPEAKER_01: 42:50

Yeah so we're we're gonna be at the we're gonna be at FDIC we're gonna be in the main hallway again this year. So we'll be there early before the general the general the doors open for the for the big conference or or the big exhibit rooms so yeah stop by see us there Eric will be there again this year we had quite a bit of correspondence with people about the after action reporting last year we'll have folks there this year to talk about the ARF IC certification parts and pieces talk about workshops at this point it sounds like Nick's gonna join us at the conference so that was really nice last year Nick connected with a whole lot of people he hadn't seen in a in a while and talked you know fire command and it was it was good him him being there. A few people came by and you know kind of it was funny they threw out the what is blue card and it was funny to sit and listen to him because it it took me back to seven or eight years ago like him him going unplugged in front of the classroom of of here's what it is and next thing you know an hour and a half went by and it's like that that that was that was that was fun. So yeah we'll be at FDIC in the main exhibit hall or in the right outside the main exhibit hall in the hallway we'll be at iChiefs again this year in Kansas City Kansas so that's always fun we're we're in the tech area again this year so that'll shouldn't be shouldn't be too hard to find us there. And then since we rolled out the ARF program ARF IC certification and instructor program last year we've been attending all of the ARF working group training and leadership conferences and and they do two or three a year. So this year we'll have folks at the ARF leadership conference that's March 9th through the 12th and I believe it's in Texas but either way if you're if you're if you do if you do ARF work and you're going to that conference catch up with our folks there they can kind of walk you through what's what's on what's going on with the with the ARF IC command and certification program. Besides that we were doing a bunch of like smaller state you know one or two day presentations just last week Chris presented at the fire department safety officer conference in Arizona and it was funny he said he said like five minutes before I was supposed to start there wasn't a ton of people in the room he said and then right at the time when I was supposed when it was time to start he's like there was standing room only and it was packed. I'm like well that that's that's fantastic and then he came up and a lot of people had discussion with him about something that seems controversial for some people about the whole safety officer piece and you know something that something that was in his presentation is the six or seven bullet points that that Dan Matrikowski listed at the FSRI 2025 like symposium and update of like where they've been where they going and what have they seen kind of thing and interesting what what they're seeing this program addresses most of those issues and challenges. There was nothing written on there about how do you how do you advance a hand line or how do you force a door or how do you ventilate it was the thinking part of when and why not not so much the how or any of the how task level you know stuff. And then the other part of the uh something we say with with writ that aligns right with safety and Chris and I have had tons of conversation about this along with the the rest of our instructor group is the capability of your writ response is the entire response on the fire ground and the capability of those people that are inside the building when the event happens the capability of the incident commanders the division boss company officers firefighters everybody writ is not a two three four five six person team that's standing outside waiting for something bad to happen. And and you know it's funny Chief Renistini was talking about that 25 years ago it's the capability of everybody what everybody can do and now all of the data points right at that right because very few of these events are solved from the outside in it's it's the inside out and it's the capability of everybody right you can have the best incident commander in the world and if you've got shitty companies it ain't gonna work and vice versa you've got the best companies in the world but on their worst day when there has to when somebody's got to organize and manage and do risk management and have an incident action plan and and and have the balls to say it's over like what's lost is lost you know you're losing. So you know the same thing with safety safety is not a person safety is the capability of everybody that's on the fire ground and the entire response you know and and in 30 some years around this region in Hamilton County you know safety officers in and out in and out some guys show up and I'm the safety police and it's like even they say now they're like yeah I'm just one person and I can only see one thing at a time and oftentimes I'm not seeing what I really should see. So you know that Chris had quite a quite a discussion and quite a bit of the stuff he rolled out was about that the the whole thing of safety is the capability of everybody on the fire ground and really everybody operating in one system under one incident action plan, right? That's the that's the big key one incident action plan. So yeah so that was really good we got some other webinar stuff that we're doing at some conferences that are that are just basically televised like type things that they'll they'll play but I'm sure I'm forgetting things but that's what that's what's on the horizon soon.

SPEAKER_00: 48:38

Oh good well look look at us at a conference near you because I mean it you know what what you're gonna be going through this year will probably be popping up and if you you have questions you want to come by and say hi and just visit or get some hard hitting information stop by look us up uh we we want to communicate that to you i i i want to make sure that folks are looking at the buck slip every week we put out uh a uh an article a podcast and new information it's the v shifter buck slip in the show notes you can sign up for that and and the buck slips really are newsletter for incident commanders so like this week at Harton was talking about and you brought this up before Josh too you know when you go to a medical call it might not just be a medical call there could be a CO leak there could be other things going on there so how are you sizing up those EMS events that we're going to so you're doing no further harm and you're actually finding out what's going on and making good decisions when you go to it so that's our our command drill this week because we have a lot of case studies I've been on them myself. You know you go to a CO alarm you get it in your head oh well I'm bringing the the monitor in I'm going to check out what it is and in one case I had a guy in an adjoining condo committed suicide by starting his car sat in the garage filled the entire complex with CO and it really wasn't until our investigation that you know we found the person who was down and then we also found his wife very very sick in in the bed upstairs and luckily we were able to get her out so you know those those things have a way of cascading especially when you don't size them up using really our our standard A functions of command even on an EMS event so that you know that that's an example of what we talk about every week. That content is free. It's at bshifter.com but it's also available through the buck slip so you get it directly into your your mailbox every single week.

SPEAKER_01: 50:27

Yeah John that that that event you just described we have uh in the hazmat ic certification program that's one of the simulations that we have in there is car running in a in a attached garage in a you know multifamily complex and where you got where the where where you got called to for the sick person isn't wasn't the the root cause of the problem yeah I mean you got called for the sick person that was just having general flu like symptoms that were indeed was indeed exposed to carbon dioxide but upon further investigation of somebody making a decision of we should probably investigate this further it turns out yeah there was a car running in the garage and and there was CO throughout multiple units and in in the building so yeah it comes back to that decision making process.

SPEAKER_00: 51:17

Well do you have anything else for us? I mean I we we covered a lot today we have a lot going on we want folks to to keep looking at vshifter.com so you stay up to date on this but we thought it would be a good opportunity we like to hop on here once in a while let everybody get the information from us on the podcast on what's happening with blue card and V Shifter. Do you have anything else?

SPEAKER_01: 51:37

Yeah so that's um that's that's that's quite a bit of most everything we got you know on the books or or in the near future on the books and make sure you jump on there if if you're an instructor or not like even if you're not an instructor jump on that webinar because it's still going to be very informative and we're gonna we're gonna start doing more webinars in 2026 than just the podcast so some other more informational things getting Eric Phillips back on going over some more stuff with the after action reporting system because I didn't say it but we've added another layer to that that's also getting ready to launch of how your organization can use the after action reporting system. It's a template that's built just for running a cert lab. So it's only got the five buildings on it. So instead of maybe going through and checking box on the on a on a you know on a whiteboard or a piece of paper you could use the after action reporting system to you know to evaluate it and and then that really does two things. So you're you're evaluating the process and and how the IC1 and IC2 and division bosses are going but you're also exercising that that same model that you're going to use at a real incident you're exercising in that controlled training environment. So you can kind of make some comparisons to that like why do we why are we not doing so good in the field but we're doing we think we're doing good when we're certifying people well if you go back and look and it's like well well no we weren't doing that great when we were certifying people either we were just kind of pushing them through so we shouldn't have the expectation that anything's going to change or that they're gonna do better you know when the bell rings and we're operating out in the field. So yeah a lot going on and and as always if you have something you need something you got a you know productive recommendation for us you know reach out to us and we we we put it on the whiteboard chris is I think Chris has expanded yet another wall in his office of you know the to-do list and we always say we have there's work forever because it's the fire department and with every fire department the idea fairy always shows up and then it's like well yeah we put it on the list and we'll get to it because there's a whole lot more idea fairies than there are worker bees.

SPEAKER_00: 53:51

That's for sure that is for sure. Well Josh thanks for being here today Josh Bloom John Vance we want to thank everyone here for listening to the B Shifter podcast this week and we'll talk you next Thursday. Thanks good I'll stop it there. Oh yeah Oh yeah